Three Degrees to the Left
by k123
Summary: When she's young, Cloud wants to grow up to be just like Sephiroth; because Cloud is Cloud, regardless of gender. Girl!Cloud, because this fandom needs more of it.
1. PreGame

Cloud grows up as poor trash in a forgotten village in the mountains. She grows up hearing people mutter about her bastard birth behind her back, being bullied and groped by the boys in town, being told to stay quiet and just take it.

She is five when she first sees a picture of Sephiroth. He is tall and imposing, silver hair flowing down his back to math the silver steel gleaming in his hand; he doesn't look like he would let anyone bully him.

She thinks he is a girl. He is tall, yes, but slender, with long, thick hair, delicate features, and eyes that glow with the strength of a SOLDIER. She thinks he is a girl, and when she looks at him, she thinks that someday she wants to be just as strong; no, someday she _will_ be just as strong. That picture proves that girls can be fighters; that they aren't condemned to stay in a dead end village as good little housewives who _just take it._

She discovers quickly enough that he is male, but by that time it makes no difference. He is still what she wants to be when she grows up.

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Tifa is the one to befriend her, if you can call it that, despite being daughter of the mayor, beautiful, and, if village gossip is correct, a very promising martial arts student. Cloud knows the gossip is correct because she used to watch from the shadows and try to imitate Tifa's movements. Tifa saw her, and subtly adjusted her body, slowing her movements down so that Cloud had a better view.

This is the extent of their acquaintance; while Tifa looks like she might like to speak with her at times, Cloud knows what the village refers to her as: white trash who will end up just like her mother. They pass by each other silently.

The only time they do speak is right before Cloud leaves. She's going to Midgar, determined to become a SOLDIER. Tifa catches her at the well and wishes her luck, something like envy burning in her eyes. Cloud understands; Tifa may be the village sweetheart and extremely good at martial arts, but she is the mayor's daughter and she will never leave this place; whatever her dreams are, they will die unspoken.

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Cloud is not stupid. She knows very well what happens to women who try to become SOLDIERs. They either end up in the Turks or burn out; if they're lucky, they wind up in the regular army. Cloud doesn't plan to be that kind of lucky.

She's scrawny and underdeveloped, a product of a poor diet and hard life, and with her hair chopped off, she can pass easily as a pretty boy. If she really were a boy, she would look too young; as a girl masquerading as a boy, she looks like a child playing dress up. The recruiters let her in without a second glance.

The army can always use more cannon fodder.

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She's weak, much weaker than all the other boys. She works twice as hard, and fails twice as miserably. The training itself hard and tiring, and sometimes she feels like giving up. What's even more difficult is the strain that comes from pretending to be a boy, having to find ways to never change in front of the others, use the showers when they're empty, and simply be extra careful in a bunker full of men. Luckily it's well known what happens to pretty boys in the army, so she doesn't have to look far for an explanation of her modesty.

There were 5 girls in her recruitment class. After 3 months only one remains and it's clear to everyone that she is destined to be a Turk.

Cloud takes a knife to her rapidly growing hair and wakes up an hour earlier every day to do more strengthening exercises.

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She meets Zack on her second day of training. She's lost and looking for her class when he stumbles upon her, quite literally. He thinks that she's the son of someone visiting Shinra, or a street urchin who conned his way in, and doesn't believe her when she tells him that she's a SOLDIER recruit. Cloud knows what she looks like and can't blame him for his disbelief, but that doesn't stop her anger. Truthfully, she wants to kick him in the shin, but she is not quite that stupid, so she settles for glaring into his eyes – and notices that they glow.

Zack likes her spirit and somehow, when she's not looking, becomes her best friend. She knows that, for him, part of it is pity, and that he doesn't actually believe that she can make SOLDIER (too small, too weak, too delicate), but it's not like it bothers her, not when he takes time to give her one-on-one instruction.

Besides, it's nice to have a friend.

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Seven months into the program and people discover her gender. They don't kick her out (they can't), but she starts getting these understanding looks; looks that say 'no wonder she was so weak, no wonder she failed at everything'. It drives her crazy because, while she never was the strongest, by this point she is far from the weakest. Her goal is not mediocrity, but she's not one to sneer at her own improvement either.

The problem is that her teachers no longer take time to even yell. While they used to cast her disgusted looks before assigning her 100 more pushups, now it's just pitying glances and a suggestion to rest awhile.

She'll never become a SOLDIER like this.

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The Nibelheim mission is offered out of pity. Everyone knows that she's about to wash out, and Zack wants to give her at least one chance to see what a mission is like.

Cloud's fine with that. She's going to use this opportunity to show them all exactly what a female can do in SOLDIER. After this mission, everything will fall into place.


	2. PreGame Zack

The first time Zack meets Cloud, he thinks she is a boy; a tiny, pretty boy, but a boy nonetheless. He also does not, for even one second, think that she might be a SOLDIER recruit.

It's not just because she looks so young (too young, but it's not like anyone cares) and delicate, or that her body's all bone and no muscle. It's her eyes, and the way she walks. The kids who want to join SOLDIER, they're looking for something – a purpose, an ideal, a new life, anything at all; not this kid though. She's lost and confused, yes, but her eyes are blue steel and she moves with purpose, even though she quite obviously does not know where she is going.

Later, when they know each other better, Cloud wants to know why Zack singled her out for personal training. In her usual self-deprecating way she assumes it's because of friendship. It's not. Sure they're friends, but Zack, much as he likes to have fun, has never been a fan of wasting time, his or anyone else's. But Cloud starts out at the bottom, and moves up slowly but surely, with a kind of implacable belief, as if the kid can't see any ending other than the top.

And it's not the recruits who are looking for something to believe in that become SOLDIER Firsts.

When it comes out that Cloud is a girl it doesn't make one whit of difference to Zack, not with the way her sword work is finally coming along. After months of training, the moves she hasn't been able to master are starting to flow. Cloud's always had mental strength, but in sword fighting, that strength can also be a weakness. She tends to overthink every swing, which slows her down and trips her up. Now, though, her body is starting to react instinctively, the sword becoming part of her. She's stopped _thinking_ and started _moving_. She doesn't have the physical strength, not yet, but she moves like quicksilver when she's not tripping over her own feet; besides, mako treatments don't discriminate between male and female.

But he sees how her teachers and fellow recruits start to treat her, the way her instructors stop training her and peers start mocking her (they'd mocked her before, but not like this). Cloud simply grits her teeth silently, pushing herself even harder, but that's still not going to get her through the SOLDIER exam. It's very easy to sabotage a cadet, and there's a good reason why prospective SOLDIERs make it a point not to anger their instructors; it's also the reason no woman has ever made it to SOLDIER.

It's why he pushes her for the Nibelheim mission. Cloud's decent right now, and someday she's going to be amazing. This mission will be her chance to prove that, and when they come back no one will be able to say Cloud doesn't deserve to be a SOLDIER.


	3. Tifa

Cloud's walking away, and she's not planning on coming back anytime soon. Barret's not going to try and stop her and neither will anyone else, despite the fact that Cloud is the only reason that last mission succeeded and that she's looking like their best hope for the future.

"Cloud!" She stops, but doesn't turn, and wonders how she could have forgotten to figure Tifa into her calculations.

Tifa's short of breath, as if she ran across a whole building to catch Cloud before she could leave. "Listen, Cloud. I'm asking you. Please join us."

"No." It's flat and quick, a response Cloud doesn't even have to think about.

"Look," Tifa says. "I could try to make you stay by telling you that the Planet's dying, which is true, but I don't think that's enough to convince you."

Cloud pivots on a heel to face her. "You'd be right." She eyes Tifa coolly. "So what other arguments do you have?"

"Honestly? Nothing. Just…it wasn't supposed to be like this; you were supposed to come home a SOLDIER First Class; a hero." Tifa shifts awkwardly. "You were supposed to come back, show everyone what you'd accomplished, and take me with you when you left again."

Cloud can't help the bitter almost-smile that crosses her face. "Well, this is news to me, considering that our last, not to mention only, conversation before I left consisted of 'good luck' and not much else." She pauses for a second, her expression shifting minutely. "You were also the only one who ever seemed to care about me, excluding my mother, so for that, thank you. But," her face returns to its default cold expression, "if you expected anyone to come out of Shinra a hero, you're a fool."

"The others didn't believe me when I told them you were a SOLDIER you know," Tifa says unexpectedly. "They said they never heard anything about a female SOLDIER First Class, and you were just some poseur who'd gotten injected by mako." She moves a little closer, laying a hand on Cloud's arm. "But I knew they were wrong. You look small and delicate, but you're also pretty flat and your body has almost no curves." Her tone isn't insulting, just matter of fact. "I bet when you signed up, you told everyone you were a boy. They must have been pretty surprised when they discovered their new SOLDIER was a female, huh?"

Well, some people were surprised. The rest just whispered behind their hands that they'd always known something about Cloud was weird, that this was the reason she was weaker than everyone else. Cloud frowns at an odd moment of disconnect, because that was wrong; SOLDIERs weren't weaker, they were stronger – but she hadn't been a SOLDIER at the time, just a cadet. She had proven herself, though, on a mission soon afterward (so what if she can't remember all the details). They stopped whispering anyway (they must have) when Cloud finally did become a SOLDIER; and she might not remember the ceremony, the missions might be hazy, but she remembers the mako treatments (painpainpain_pain_) and she has her uniform (which doesn't fit quite right; hangs on her, too broad in the shoulders, and even if she's small, she's not completely flat, but that doesn't make sense because in her memories it conforms perfectly to her body; however, a lot of things these days don't make sense to Cloud and -- )

"Cloud? Are you ok?" Tifa tightens her hand slightly, looking worried.

"I'm fine." Cloud's voice is terse, her body tense. "Tifa what do you want from me?"

"You know Cloud, even though I was pretty popular in the village and we only spoke once –" Tifa breaks off, laughing a little at how absurd that sounds. "Still… I always considered you one of my few real friends; and I always thought you would come back." She looks up, repeating her earlier sentiments. "You'd come back and you'd show them how amazing you were, how you didn't have to be a boy to be a fighter. You'd come back and be –"

"– everything you weren't." Cloud finishes.

Tifa looks back down silently.

"I can't break a promise I never made Tifa."

"But you can make one now." Tifa's hand tightens again, this time on purpose. "Please Cloud; do it because the Planet _is_ dying, because you _did_ become a SOLDIER, because," she hesitates for a moment, looking very young and far too vulnerable, "because I like to think I was one of your friends back then too."

Cloud doesn't say anything, but she puts her bag down and thinks that she's going to demand double the price for the next mission.


	4. Aeris

There is a girl lying among her flowers – blonde and tiny, with muscles of steel hiding underneath slim flesh. Well, Aeris reasons, this explains the crashing sound; and the hole in the roof. The girl groans, opening her eyes, exposing a Mako glow. Gaia forbid life ever be boring

"Are you okay?" Aeris asks.

"…I came crashing down?" the girl seems confused, staring up through the roof at the sky.

Aeris hurries to reassure her. "The roof and the flower bed must have broken your fall. You're lucky." The Mako in your body probably helped a bit too, she adds silently.

It seems that she's doomed to have gorgeous SOLDIERs fall from the sky into her church (then she shuts that thought down because Zack is gone and he's not coming back, but this girl is right here and looks like she could use some help).

Aeris goes back to her flowers, trying to put the mysterious girl at ease. She's tense, strung tight as a wire, and looks like one good swing could knock her down; at least she looks that way up until she moves. Then she's all fluid grace and coiled danger. Death, wrapped up in a very pretty, very broken, package.

Aeris gently touches her flowers and thinks how she's always had a weakness for pretty, broken things.

This comes in handy, though, when the Turks invade her church. She recruits Cloud as her bodyguard, all that leashed violence looking like it could come in handy. The girl doesn't disappoint.

Aeris had only intended for Cloud to talk to the Turks and distract them, but she moves lightning fast, her knife (and Aeris can't help but wonder where she was hiding it) slicing through the air. 1-2-3 soldiers down, and then Reno is brandishing his nightstick threateningly.

Aeris intervenes quickly, citing her flowers as a reason to get out of there. Cloud's tensed, the words 'Shinra spy' a growl in her throat, and the way she suddenly looks at Reno, eyes wide and almost frightened, it's as if she knows him.

Aeris takes advantage of Cloud's stillness, grabbing her hand and dragging her out the exit. Behind her, she hears Reno muttering something about Mako eyes and dead bodies and how he hates having to clean up after other people's messes, but she doesn't look back as Cloud takes the lead, pulling her out of the exit and up to the roof of the church.

Aeris tightens her grip on Cloud's hand, letting the girl keep the lead for now. In a bit, she'll redirect them and take Cloud with her back home; Aeris knows herself, knows her weaknesses and her strengths, and now that she's found this girl, she's not letting her go.


	5. Yuffie

Cloud doesn't understand Yuffie. She's loud, obnoxious, and somehow has decided that Cloud is the perfect person to play older sister/confidante. It just doesn't make any sense.

First of all, if anyone is fit to play the older sister who listens to your woes, it's Aeris, with her soft smile and comforting hands. Or even Tifa, who will roll her eyes at your so called woes and then teach you how to incapacitate someone with your pinky. Not Cloud, who just sits there silently, and doesn't even look over at the younger girl while she blathers on about god knows what.

She thinks she understands it when Yuffie one time exclaims, "You're such a good listener Cloud!" before bouncing off with her normal cheer, but Aeris just laughs at her when Cloud mentions this theory.

"Cloud, _no one_ thinks you're a good listener, least of all Yuffie," she tells her gravely, before collapsing into a fit of giggles.

Cloud looks at Aeris irritably. "Then why does she insist on talking to me constantly about _everything_?" she asks, hands methodically sharpening her sword (if she's going to have a conversation about emotions, she's going to be doing something deadly while she talks).

"It's because she _likes_ you Cloud," Aeris says, shaking her head. "Is that so hard to believe?"

Cloud frowns at her, "But it's _ridiculous_," she complains. "Yuffie has much better role models than me around. Like you. Or Tifa."

Aeris sighs deeply, giving Cloud a Look. Gaia, but Cloud hates Aeris' Looks.

"Well then consider this," Aeris replies. "Consider the fact that she's lost her country to war and her people are basically slaves under Shinra's regime. Consider the fact that you're leading a rebellion group, and she's expecting to someday take back rulership over Wutai." Aeris carefully lays her hands on top of Clouds. "Consider the fact," she says quietly, "that you're pretty good with that sword of yours. That maybe you're an inspiration."

Cloud glances at Aeris from under her lashes. "Maybe I'm not worthy to be anyone's inspiration," she responds, just as quietly, purposefully not meeting Aeris' eyes.

Aeris thwacks her over the head. "Get _over_ yourself Cloud," she exclaims. "Go slice up a tree or something with your sword, you'll feel better." (and see, this is _exactly_ why Aeris is a much better choice than Cloud for a confidante.)

Cloud almost smiles, looking back down at her sword, before her whole face shifts minutely into an almost glare. "My materia," she says, staring at her sword, "it's gone."

"Of course," Aeris proclaims brightly. "That could be another reason she chooses you to confide in. You have the shiniest toys around, and you do your best not to look at anyone when they're actually speaking to you." Aeris then breaks into laughter again, and Cloud decides that slicing something up _will_ make her feel better, especially if that 'something' is Yuffie.


End file.
